First post, by Peter Swinkels
Hello,
I'm having some minor trouble running the game Grand Prix Circuit (by Accolade - 1988) in DosBox 0.73. The game itself actually runs with no problems; however the program gp.exe which displays a menu allowing you to select a graphics mode always freezes immediately after being launched. All I get is a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the DosBox window and no response whatsoever.
Gp.exe works fine when launched from Windows XP; I also remember it working fine back when I still used MS-DOS. And interestingly, I also tested it in DosBox 0.72 and it worked fine.
This is hardly a problem since I can easily bypass gp.exe (the graphics mode menu) by starting the game directly in a specific graphics mode (by executing gpcga.exe/gpega.exe/gptdy.exe.) I still think this problem is worth mentioning here because if it's a problem in DosBox it might also affect other software executed in DosBox. It's also a bit annoying having to terminate and then restart DosBox because it froze after starting gp.exe.
Steps already attempted to solve the problem:
-I have read the readme file (readme.txt) and tried changing some configuration options as suggested in the trouble shooting section. Without success.
-The readme also suggests using the built in loadfix command, which doesn't help. Gp.exe still freezes immediately
-Running gp.exe in the debugger version of DosBox 0.72. Couldn't find out anything useful.
-Disassembling gp.exe with the Nasm Disassembler (it's only a 1106 byte executable.) Although I learned a lot about how it works, this didn't really help me find out the cause of the freezing in DosBox.
Computer specifications:
-Laptop: Dell Inspiron 6000
-Motherboard: Unknown.
-Processor type and speed: 2.13 GHz Pentium M.
-Amount and type of RAM: 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM (Dual channel, 533 MHz)
-Video board w/ RAM amount and type: ATI Mobility Radeon X300 (128mb video RAM)
-Sound board: SigmaTel C-Major Audio.
-Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional sp3.
See attachment for the DosBox configuration used.